Default Personal Page

Biography

Sarah Spurgeon is Head of the Department of Electronic and Electrical
Engineering and Professor of Control Engineering at UCL. Her research
interests are in the area of systems modelling and analysis, robust control
and estimation in which areas she has published over 300 research papers.
She was awarded the Honeywell International Medal for 'distinguished
contribution as a control and measurement technologist to developing the
theory of control' in 2010 and an IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000.

Sarah Spurgeon received B.Sc. and D.Phil. degrees from the University
of York, York, U.K., in 1985 and 1988, respectively. She has held previous
academic positions at the University of Loughborough, the University of
Leicester and the University of Kent in the UK. She was appointed as
Professor of Engineering at the University of Leicester in 2002 and was
Head of their Department of Engineering from 2006-2008. She was Professor
of Control Engineering and Head of the School of Engineering and Digital
Arts at the University of Kent from 2008-2016.

Sarah Spurgeon has previously chaired the IEEE Technical Committee on
Variable Structure and Sliding Mode Control and the UK Automatic Control
Council, the national member organisation of the International Federation of
Automatic Control. She was an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the Control
Systems Society for the period 2011-2014 and has also Chaired the Ingenious
Panel of the Royal Academy of Engineering which, supported by BIS,
prioritised funding for public engagement projects which put engineering at
the heart of society. She was a member of the HEFCE REF sub-panel 15 General
Engineering.

Within the UK she is currently President of the Institute of Measurement
and Control and a Board member of EngineeringUK. She is a member of the
Defence Scientific Advisory Council (DSAC) which provides independent advice
to the Secretary of State for Defence on matters of concern to the Ministry
of Defence in the fields of Science, Engineering, Technology and Analysis
(SETA). She is currently the Vice President of the Engineering Professors
Council (EPC) and a member of the EPSRC Strategic Advisory Team (SAT).
Internationally, she is a member of Council of IFAC for the period 2014-2017
and is the UK representative on the General Assembly of the European Control
Association.

Research

Sarah Spurgeon is well known for her work on the mathematical modelling and analysis of complex systems as well as for contributions to robust control and estimation.

Her research is underpinned by strong theoretical contributions in the area of nonlinear and discontinuous control theory evidenced by the publication of in excess of 300 papers with more than 8850 citations. She is well known for her contributions in the area of nonlinear control and estimation, particularly via so-called variable structure and sliding mode techniques. Recent theoretical contributions include development and analysis of robust sliding mode controllers when limited information is available for use by the controller, robust control of uncertain systems with time-delay, sliding mode methods applied to estimation as well as control and observation of large-scale, interconnected systems. Throughout her career she has placed equal emphasis on applications oriented studies across diverse areas including fixed-wing and rotary aircraft (work has been supported by BAE Systems), control of autonomous and semi-autonomous systems where applications include defence (work was supported by the Defence T